Nearly 67 million people tuned in to watch network news coverage of the elections, ratings firm Nielsen reported. But social media was also a big draw: 306 million people flocked to Facebook and more than 11 million turned to Twitter, a big jump from a day earlier, according to research firm Experian Hitwise.

And that has begun to disrupt the familiar rhythm of political campaigns and national elections that used to play out on TV, radio and, more recently, the websites of news organizations. On election night, people who turned on a second screen did so to chat and connect with others on social media, and in doing so they had a very different experience than those who did not.

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And social media gave people the feeling they were engaging directly — not just with each other, but with the candidates. After Obama’s campaign tweeted a photograph of Obama embracing First Lady Michelle Obama, it became social media’s most shared image ever, shattering even Justin Bieber records. The image has been retweeted more than 725,000 times and got more than 3 million likes on Facebook.

“This is really the first time election night became a conversation,” said Joe Green, the 29-year-old co-founder and president of NationBuilder, a Los Angeles company that builds online organizing tools for campaigns. “I was in a room with 50 people watching TV, but I was having a conversation with thousands of people on Facebook.